Various situations require the communication of position data of an individual or object. Law enforcement, rescue and fire workers, for example, benefit from having headquarters know the current position of each worker and/or vehicle in the field. Highly mobile professionals, such as realtors, general contractors, and electricians, can benefit from having a central know their whereabouts. Entities that historically have workers in the field, such as delivery companies, use the position data of their employees and/or vehicles to estimate delivery or visit times and to keep track of production. Further, individuals can use position data to keep tabs on each other, on children or on elderly family members.
One common problem with the communication of position data, however, is the method by which the position data is communicated. Several commercially available solutions for communicating position data involve the installation and configuration of dedicated servers and/or devices on each individual or vehicle that must be located. This can be costly for the organization and burdensome for the individuals who are required to carry an additional device, thereby adding weight. Other solutions for communicating position data involve a user downloading and installing a standalone software application on a mobile computing device, and then interacting with the software application on the mobile computing device in order to communicate their position data. This approach can be onerous and time consuming for the individual, since it requires the individual to open the mobile computing device, launch the software application, wait for the software application to load and then interact with the software application to communication position data. This solution is not compatible with the fast pace of society today.
Yet another problem with current solutions for communicating position data involves accuracy. Certain situations call for a more precise or accurate position data reading, but current solutions for communicating position data do not allow for the customization of the desired precision or accuracy of the position data. This limits the usability and application of current approaches to communicating position data.
Therefore, what is needed is a system and method for improving upon the problems with the prior art, and more particularly for a more efficient, accurate and user-friendly way of communicating position data over a communications network.